Blogs from Naples, Campania, Italy, Europe - page 25

So I just arrived at my first city camp where i will be teaching english with 4 more tutors from the UK, Canada, Sweden, and USA. They are all great people with awesome travel experiences. I will be here in a small town 30 mminutes away from Pompei for two weeks. The place is run by "open minded nuns", so that should be interesting! About 50 of us traveled together on a night train that left Sanremo at 10:30 last night, and we just arrived. It was an interesting night aboard TrainItalia. I shall be posting pictures as soon as I have more time. So far all I can say is that traffic is CRAZY! There seems to be no order whatsoever, and everyone (pedestrians and cars) have the right of way. There are lots of ... read more

Naples and Capri, Italy: Note to self: DO NOT EVER GO BACK TO NAPLES! Talk about having the wrong idea, we were so wrong about Naples! We were expecting to get off the train and find a quaint beach town with trees, beaches, and blue water, and what we found were gypsies, homeless people, and trash! The weather was great, but the city was in terrible condition. (If you can call it a city!) There really was no city center, and not much to do there at all! But we figured that we couldn’t be entirely misinformed, so we were trying to give it a shot and make the best of it. Our first night in the city, we went to the Galleria Umberto near a place called Piazza Municipio that is supposedly fun for young ... read more

Ha ha! Ha hahahaha! Gimme a sec to get it all out of my system....hahahaha!!! :) Ok, I'm done now. Sorry bout that, but the notion of Italians actually FOLLOWING road rules is highly laughable. Truly. Ha ha. Ok, really, I'm done. Let me explain... Driving along in Pasquale's car, holding on for dear life and watching my knuckles turn a pasty white (which was undoubtedly the colour of my face before it turned blue as we were approaching the top of Vesuvius), I learnt the following about Italian road rule, or, rather, lack of them. Sticking to your lane? -- What lanes? It's a free for all Giving way? -- What the hell for? Just speed up and you're bound to find a gap in the traffic Indicating? -- Oh, we thought that was just ... read more

I think this was the craziest day of my life so far! I took the train down to Naples to spend my birthday there with my friend John. I spent the morning wandering throught the crowded street market just off of Piazza Garibaldi. When John arrived, we took a cab down to the port to have lunch near the sea. On the ride down, we are stopped at a stop light, and this vespa pulls up between our cab and the car next to us. The car next to us has their window rolled down, and the guy on the back of the vespa jumps off and steals the woman's purse right out of her hand. Then he jumps back on the vespa and the two guys take off. I couldn't believe what I had just ... read more

Today our big adventure was to go to the Negombo thermal baths in Ischia. They were reccomended to us by our young hostel owners and were supposed to be the hip place to go. Getting to Negombo ws not so easy. The hotel owners directed us down the hill 300 meters, then take a right, wait for any bus going east, then get off in Lacco Ameno (where The Talented Mr. Ripley was filmed) and ask someone where to go from there. We found the bus stop. We let one bus go by because it was jammed full. The next one was packed too, but we hopped on anyway and stood in the exit area. Having no map, we didn't know exactly where Lacco Ameno was, so we just got off at the next populated area. ... read more